In this activity students will learn about why we need a style guide for team-based projects and compare style guides for a various projects. Based on this experience, students will develop a style guide for their team.

Prerequisite Knowledge

Knowledge of basic regular expressions is helpful to understand the checkstyle documentation.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, students will be able to:

Explain how a style guide contributes to a team project.

Develop a style guide for a project.

Background:

Working by themselves on small projects convinces students that coding style his little relevance. As they begin work on HFOSS projects, they need to begin to build an appreciation for the place of a standardized coding style.

This topic is an opportunity for active debate about coding style, but is also a lesson in the need for accepting standards - even if they are not your preference.

Directions:

The following activities should be completed by the student before coming to class: